The first blog dedicated to the proposition that Bend, Oregon really, truly, deeply and profoundly sucks.

Monday, July 9, 2012

My Pride and Joy

This is my new most-prized possession (and a neat early birthday gift) -- a custom-made BEND SUX mug handcrafted by Owen Gearing Dearing of Bend, aka "The Mugmaker." Owen is a fine craftsman and a helluva nice guy who creates beautiful mugs with your choice of custom lettering or design, and also very lovely shaving mugs (I bought one). Check it all out here.

P.S.: I'm sure Owen would be happy to make any of my fans a BEND SUX mug of his/her very own.

Marshall: Just go to his website and order one; I think they're $25 plus shipping.

In 26 summers we've never felt the need for air conditioning. But then our house has a pretty good passive solar design and is almost surrounded by big trees, so in summer there's a lot of shade. Rarely gets above 75 or 76 inside.

Passive being the operative word here. Since I office at home, I'm here during the day to open/close windows, draw blinds, cross ventilate and crank the fans etc.

It takes two to three mins. per day. The secret is to not let it get roasty inside to BEGIN with! You're right, trees make all the difference.

This has caused me to re-think my whole snowbird position. Sure, PHX/LV got the sun but judging by my power bill, living in the desert will become VERY expensive and I'm not talking long term. If I grafted my rate increases onto their AC useage it would be horrific.

We were told most of the newer homes in Phoenix have heat pumps -- much more efficient than old-school AC. And then you have to consider that from October through April temps are close to ideal and you won't have to run heat or AC much, if at all, during that period.

Bend's 10-Day may look slightly better w/ higher temps down the road, but you're still encountering the same mid-summer cold inducing gray collapse we always seem to have time to work in?

We've had wild swings in High's from day to day and even minute to minute. The bottom line here is while this doesn't meet Drear in truest def. of the term, it CERTAINLY doesn't make for awesome tanning weather.

Cloud cover moving across the skies regularly. Not cutting it. As usual.

“I needed to create some better life balance,” said Strimple, who moved his family to Boise in 2010.

He said he and his wife, Kari, a stay-at-home-mom, used a Venn diagram to pick the city. Their intersecting sets: the West, good public schools, healthy economy, modest taxes, lower cost of living, easy airport access, good weather and fly fishing.

“When you start doing that, quickly it narrows to Boise,” said Strimple, 45. “I seriously considered Bend, (Ore.), but as I was going through the process they decided they were going to raise taxes even higher and I said, ‘No, not for me.’”

Well, this Strimple guy is a professional Republican, so I've got to take his remarks about taxes with a generous helping of salt. I have never considered property taxes or state income taxes to be especially high here, and the absence of a sales tax saves a lot of money.

We've agreed to leave politics aside but I've learned there's no 'upside' to volunteering yourself for higher taxation. The municpalities that have no reservation about the jack KNOW it's not because of "increased infrastructure costs".

If anything the -opposite- is true. The cost to have a road/school/hospital should be exponentially higher per capita than densely pop. areas. Fooled again!

The reason they get away it in NY SoCal/NorCal etc. is precisely BECAUSE there are so many people! More a component of retail price per sq. ft. than anything. A pizzeria in NYC will do infinitely better than one in Sandpoint, ID.

As will an insurance agent, manicurist, fortune teller or Payless Shoes. The Law Of Large Numbers. There's a premium, PAY IT or you can live in the sticks. Pretty simple really. Anyone that opts for Boise over Bend has my blessing regardless of affiliation.

"From everything I've heard and read, the "revenue projections" just weren't there and businesses are leaving left and right."

It's true M66 and 67 didn't raise as much revenue as projected, but The Great Recession hit just as the taxes went into effect.

It's simply not true that "businesses are leaving left and right" because of M66 and 67. In fact many large and small businesses have expanded in Oregon since the measures went into effect. Intel is one that comes to mind off the top of my head.

Actually the prop taxes in Bend seem higher than Boise's since ID gives you a $100K homeowner's exemption off the top of your house's assessment. Also houses are much cheaper for the same house in the Boise area.

Also state income taxes in OR are very high since to reach the top bracket doesn't take many $$. It is not very progressive, but more flattish.I used to have college students who worked in OR during the summer on fire crews, etc. and had state taxes withheld, while no fed taxes owed.

On the bad side, We do have a sales tax on everything, including food.